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Sunday, May 11, 2014

I've been itchin' to hit up the trails lately, but I was afraid the recent rains would make for unsuitable conditions. All of the trails around here seem to have different drying times, but I'm always afraid to make the drive out to a location and find the trails to be unrideable. After talking it over with Nathan, we decided to play it safe and headed to a little known trail system that is made up of mostly gravel access roads with some offshoots of singletrack. Our thought behind this was if we discovered that the singletrack was too muddy we could still get in a good ride on the access roads. Plus, Nathan had never been to the location and it gave him a chance to test out his new Nikon DSLR.

Nathan riding through a CRP field that underwent a controlled burn this past winter

I love the distortion that the GoPro gives the trees

The
access roads were dry except for a puddle here and there and a few
small crick crossings (yup, I said crick). The offshoot trails were a
bit damp, but doable. There were plenty of spots that gave Nathan the
opportunity to try out his new camera. Check out his Instagram page to see a few of the pictures from our ride.

Yeah, my arms are super pale. I wore a cutoff for a reason.

My favorite GoPro picture of the day. Crick selfie!

I completely forgot to start my Strava, but according to Nathan's our ride only consisted of about 5 miles. We spent quite a bit of time off the bikes messing around and taking pictures. It was just nice to get outside, do some exploring, and get in a bit of exercise.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

This past Saturday I decided to head back up to the Little Sac to see if I could get into some more white bass. I set out for the same hole that I fished a couple of weeks ago in hopes of fishing a brush pile that they had been stacked up in. I became a bit disappointed when I found another fisherman working the brush pile that I had been salivating over all week long. After a few minutes of conversation, I decided to settle into a spot about 100 yards upstream from the other angler. The first 30-45 minutes went by without even a nibble, but after doing a bit of walking and wading I started to find the fish. The presence of the other fisherman turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it forced me find new water and structure to fish.

Throughout the afternoon I managed to bring 17 white bass to hand along with a couple of tiny largemouth. The fishing was considerably slower than it had been a couple of weeks ago, but it was a great learning experience. I made an effort to frequently check my line and retie throughout the day. I did manage to break off one fish, but it was still a great improvement over my last outing.

Canon AE-1 Program

I'm sure that the peak of this spring's white bass spawn has come and gone, but I'm planning on heading out there sometime next week with Lauren to see if I can still scrounge up a few more. I might also attempt to put a hook in a couple of the carp I saw loafing around in the shallows and maybe put out some limb lines for catfish.